A few days ago, Michael was coughing a lot and he said he had a sore throat and mucus. I am not a doctor, but he thinks I can fix him. He basically doesn’t trust modern medicine and loves oriental treats so much. So I made this ginger tea for him. It has a warm character, helps blood circulation and keeps your hands and feet warm. It also helps stop coughing and clears mucus. Though oriental doctors recommend not to drink it, if you have a fever.

Ingredients

• Fresh ginger – 80 g
• Fresh cinnamon pieces- 20 g
• Water – 8 cups
• Optional (just before you serve the tea) – 4 to 5 pine nuts, 1 tsp of honey

Preparation

1. Clean the ginger well (peel the skin off as well). – I scrubbed it with rough cloth first then used a spoon to scrub off the skin
2. Rinse the cinnamon in cold water. (You don’t need to cut them into small pieces, mine was already in small pieces.)
3. Thin slice the ginger.

Cooking

1. Put the ginger, cinnamon, and water into a pot.
2. Boil it on medium (or low) heat for about 25-30 minutes.
3. Sieve the ginger and cinnamon. (Use a white straining cloth if you can, to catch the small dirt from the cinnamon)
4. Serve it in a tea cup. (You can also add some pine nuts and honey)

It gave me more than 1.5 L of tea (about 7-8 cups of tea). This is how I keep the rest.

Michael just reheats a little amount of tea whenever he drinks it – 2 times a day. Here is a comment from the consumer :

“This is my favourite drink. It helps sooth my throat, and is very relaxing.”

This is a picture of the cinnamon (Korean name :Gyepi) I got last year from Homeplus. (about 5,800 won – US $6.10)

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I bought some ginseng to make some tea for him and it seem to work well.

Ginseng is quite expensive even in Korea, I bought 2 roots of ginseng – 106 g for 6,360 won (US $6.70) It was 6000 won per 100g.

Ginseng’s main benefits are

1. Improving the immune system.
2. Relaxing the nervous system.
3. Recovering strength.

Ingredients

• Ginseng 50g (I used fresh ginseng)
• 5 Chinese dates
• Water 2.5 L (Apparently you need 500ml of water per every 10g of ginseng, so you can adjust it yourself)
• Honey 1 tsp (per 1 cup of tea)

Steps

1. Rinse the ginseng, scrub the dirt with a cloth as needed.
2. Rinse the Chinese dates.
3. Put the water into the pot or kettle. Add the ginseng and Chinese dates.

4. Boil it on low heat. (About 20-25 minutes)

How to serve (This is how I serve this tea, perhaps different than other people)

1. Put the honey in the cup.
2. Scoop or pour the boiled water in.
3. Hold the ginseng with tongs and cut the ginseng and Chinese dates with scissors. (I cut 3 small pieces of ginseng and 1/2 a Chinese date for 1 cup of tea, so you can make about 10 cups of tea)
4. Stir it with a tea spoon and drink it. (You can feel that your body is warming up within 1 minute.)

Since I boiled 2.5 L of tea, I reboiled several times to finish it up. (It gave me about 10 cups of tea total)

By the way, ginseng isn’t good for everyone. People who have warm character body type according to “Sasang constitutional medicine” need to be more careful. I am one of those people, so I don’t have ginseng. So I recommend you consult with a herbal (oriental) doctor first before you take ginseng.

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-Il-byung Song

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